Summer! Finally!

I have emerged from the hell that was finals week--or, more precisely  the last month of the quarter. It could have been worse, as I wound up dropping Statistics out of sheer desperation, but there was still more than enough to keep me running, including the first few chapters of a new novel (I found an excuse to take a writing class) and moving out of the apartment. 

Which happened today and was far from conducive to peace of mind. Enough on that now. I doubt anyone wants to hear about what we found in the back of the fridge. 

Somewhere in there, Fanime happened. It was the first convention I've gone to with a large group of friends, and the results were both delightful (people to hang out with in the hotel room, dances) and disastrous (coordination, hoo boy...).  I shall post pictures as soon as I can get them off various people, as I left my camera in a drawer at home, and the tablet's camera wasn't quite up to the job.

I spent most of my time at Clockwork Alchemy. There, I finally purchased an Author Hat, which I am inordinately fond of. I had a wonderful time, and returned to school in a much better frame of mind for the explosion of excitement that was the ensuing month. 

Fieldwork has also picked up. I need to go in to lab tomorrow to finish processing the samples that we got yesterday. In the meantime, I'm going to appreciate being home with parents and cats and lots of good food... 

Launch Day!

Weather is out today!

Julian and his world have been kicking around in my head for the last three years or so, and to finally get the little sneak out of the house and into the real world has always been my goal--while some of my projects were written with the express goal of leaving them to moulder under my bed when I was done, Weather was always intended for publication. At least, so I hoped.

And now I'm a day away from strangers (who aren't being paid to do it!) reading the book. I'm torn between hooting and hollering and having an (illegal) glass of champagne and hiding under the bed going "I hope no one notices the historical inaccuracy of the dirigibles/attitudes/Julian's left nostril, oh god I hope there's not someone ACTUALLY named Julian Lambert..." 

That aside, thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me, to my advisor, who's put up with me being completely scatterbrained over the last two quarters, to my parents, godparents and extended family for encouraging me to pursue both scientific and literary careers, to the various wonderful people I've lived with and been friends with, and to the older and more experienced authors who have been my inspirations and my mentors, whether over the course of years or an hour's conversation at a convention. Oh, and to my current housemates, who have had to put up with me playing the theme from a certain animated TV show on repeat for the last two weeks.


Now to go deal with the fact I can't get one of my marketing tools to work before I get in trouble with the publisher!

Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition

This weekend I got to do my first convention as an author and it was wonderful. I cannot recommend the experience enough! The convention in question was the Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition in Santa Clara.

I almost didn't go; my college is a good six hours away by car, seven and a bit by train, and neither I nor my companions had our drivers licenses yet (well, one did, but she had just driven up from San Diego the night before, and so it was less than kind to saddle her with yet another lengthily drive the next day). So we took the train.

I, a train noob, am now convinced that train is the most supremely civilized way to travel. It was quiet and surprisingly fast and, above all, comfortable. And you meet the nicest people. One of my companions wound up talking to her seat partner for the better part of the return trip, to our neglect. And, oh, yes, the views look like this.

Somewhere north of San Luis Obispo

Once we arrived, we had a bit of a scramble, as the registration desk had closed before our train had turned up! The convention staff were very kind, though, and we still managed to get our badges and attend the opening night ball.

Due to the vagaries of class and of trains, we were only able to stay one day. But it was more than worth it. It was my first purely steampunk convention, and a wonderful introduction to the steampunk community as a whole. I was able to talk to both the inestimable Gail Carriger and the brilliant J. Daniel Sawyer about marketing and other authorly issues, and somehow managed to avoid fangirling absurdly at the both of them (at least, I hope). Hopefully, I will one day be able to do for another young author what they have done for me. (In the meantime, I have an awful lot of internet work to do!)

Real world work, too. One of the bits of beaded trim fell apart on me in the middle of the convention!

Weather launches tomorrow. It seems a little unreal now, back in my little apartment with the vegetarian housemate rattling around in the kitchen and the entire place smelling of ant spray (guess what invaded over the weekend?) and a pile of very modern laundry on the bed. I can't wait until next year. Who knows, maybe I'll be marketing book two...

Weather Has a COVER!

Isn't it GLORIOUS?

I'm just going to sit here and squee a little. Terribly unprofessional, probably, but I can't help it. 

Weather releases May 1st!

Things for inspiration

For everything I write, I have a small collection of items that I relate to the book. For one novel, a medieval fantasy, I made a mockup of my main character's sword, collected rocks similar to the ones another character needed for his magic, and drew map after map of the world. When I get stuck on something while writing, I go and handle the things I've collected to remind me of the book. It often helps a lot. 

The advantage to writing something historical was that I didn't have to make much of what I needed. I just needed to get creative with scavenging for things in the family attic. Here are the things for Weather. 

The books in the background are two volumes of Wood's Household Medicine. It's from the 1870s, about twenty years too late for the events of Weather, but it was enormously helpful in getting an idea of the approach people would take toward medicine in the period. My main character, Julian, is...well, accident prone. Very accident prone. 

Next down is an inkwell my aunt gave to me several Christmasses ago. Writing with a fountain pen is, I still think, the only acceptable way to write a letter, and I feel rather ill-behaved if I send a letter to one of my pen pals written in boring, everyday pen. 

The fan at the bottom right was from my grandmother. It is perhaps the most useful of all of these things, as the main character uses a fan extensively in the novel. This fan is by far my favorite, and lives at home. I have a few other fans in my apartment at school, so I can stomp around and figure out exactly what the main character would do with his fan to cast various spells (I'd be more specific, but spoilers!). I have yet to alarm the housemates, which says more flattering things about the housemates than about me. 

The pair of golden spectacles I picked up at an antique store in Maine while visiting the same aunt who was responsible for the inkwell. I found them after I had written the first draft of the novel and was absolutely enchanted because they perfectly fit my mental image of another character's spectacles. They also fit me, which was even better. Even if they made me look like someone's grandmother. 

The fat watch in the corner is a turnip watch. Though a bit later in make than the events of the novel, it gave me a good idea of how heavy a gentleman's watch would have been (seriously it weighs more than my cell phone. I can check email on my cell phone. It really puts modern technology in perspective!). 

The dread Synopsis, Blurbs, Back Cover Copy, and their friends

First things first. Here's the (tentative and possibly subject to more edits) back cover blurb for Weather!

Julian Lambert has protected those with supernatural abilities from enslavement and death his entire life. But there is more to Julian than even he suspects, and when his own powers surface, he finds himself as much at risk as his charges. Now he’s no more than a useful tool, with nowhere to hide from the hideous fate that awaits him. He’s saved others, but can he save himself?

I hate writing the synopsis for a novel. Hell, I don't even know what the proper pluralization for synopsis is. But I hate writing them. By synopsis, of course, I mean the document in which you are supposed to relate all the major plot points and the resolution of the novel in an engaging and witty way so that whomever you're pitching it to can get a good idea of what happens in your novel without actually reading it. Actually, it's at the point where I'm pretty sure I've never written a synopsis that's made it out of the house. 

Blurbs/Back Cover Copy are easier. They're the little description that goes on the back cover of the book. These can actually be fun. Writing one is as close as I ever get to outlining. (I'm one of those awful people who sits down in front of the computer and just types). The way I get ideas for this varies. Two of my favorite inspirations are trailers and anime opening sequences. 

A blurb is more or less a trailer for your book. You stick all the exciting things in it, add a bit of deception, and release it into the wilds in the hopes that it'll make people want to go see it or at least go, "Well, the special effects seem okay..." 

As for anime opening sequences, I find it helpful to think about what an opening sequence for one of my stories would look like. (I have, many times, burst out giggling upon envisioning my characters in one of those slice-of-life type high school dramas, but that fact is neither here nor there...) It helps me figure out which characters I should focus on 'pitching' to my audience, and lets me find a way to make all of them as heroic and exciting as possible. Since a number of my characters fall on the 'sullen and snarky' side of the line, this is important. 

Also they're shiny and flashy. I like shiny and flashy things way too much. 

*Ahem* In any case, blurbs are important, even if they are hugely annoying to write. And since one of my friends has given me a cold, I am going to go drink massive quantities of hot lemon and honey and hope this post made some sort of sense. 

Hello!

I'm Isobelle Winter, a student and writer. I've just placed my first book, Weather, a steampunk young adult fantasy novel with Eternal Press, and so have had to dive into the weird and whacky world of online marketing. This seems to involve creating more online accounts than I can shake a stick at, and so the keen observer, peering at the sidebar of my blog, should be able to discern links to terribly fascinating places such as Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook, where one may see the shenanigans I get up to when I ought to be editing, studying, working in the laboratory, or all three.

I like hedgehogs and caramel, the former because they are absurdly cute, the latter because it is delicious. I'm fond of food in general, so I ought to be talking about that a lot. I also hope to post bits and pieces about the whole 'getting published' thing, as soon as I sort my brains out from the surprise of it all!